Imagine if someone from another country asked you this question: How would you rate America as a place to retire? I suspect you’d have a little trouble coming up with a good answer.

After all, there’s no "American weather" (it ranges from, say, winter in St. Paul, Minn., to summer in St. Petersburg, Fla.). The median home price is $717,000 in San Francisco and $127,000 in Charleston, W.Va. The unemployment rate, which might interest a prospective retiree hoping to work part-time, is 27.5 percent in Yuma, Ariz., and 2.6 percent in Bismarck, N.D. You get the idea.

To come up with its Global Retirement Index, International Living gathered data and anecdotal information from its far-flung correspondents for the 22 countries its editors think Americans and Canadians might consider as a retirement relocation. “There may be somebody who has always dreamed of retiring to Bhutan, but it’s not high enough on the radar for the vast majority of our demographic to put it in our index,” says Dan Prescher, InternationalLiving’s special projects editor.

This year, the editors added new criteria to gauge each country’s “bang for the buck,” as well as how comfortable North Americans find the local climate. “And we’re relying more on people who are living in these countries with real-life experiences,” Prescher says.

This Year’s No. 1 Country for Retirees

For the fifth year in a row, Ecuador ranked No. 1.

“That didn’t surprise me — Ecuador is an incredible value,” says Prescher, who lives in the village of Cotacachi, Ecuador, with his wife, Suzan Haskins,International Living’s Latin America editorial director. “If we try really hard, we can spend $2,000 a month here and that ain’t bad.”

Even Ecuador isn’t without its drawbacks, though.

“There are world-class medical facilities in Ecuador, but they’re based in the larger metropolitan areas, like Quito,” Prescher says. “It could take me two hours to get to Quito.”

Once again, Latin American countries dominated the winners’ list, taking six of the top 10 spots. Three countries vaulted into the Top 10: Costa Rica (No. 5), Uruguay (No. 6) and Malta (No. 10), a necklace of seven islands located halfway between Sicily and North Africa. The other world beaters: Panama (No. 2), Malaysia (No. 3), Mexico (No. 4), Colombia (No. 7), Spain (No. 8) and Thailand (No. 9).

The Drawbacks of Country Rankings

But should you rely on a ranking like this if you’re contemplating retiring outside the United States? To quote Ronald Reagan, I’d say: trust, but verify.

International Living does a fine job crunching the numbers, but a country vs. country ranking doesn’t fully match up with the real world.

“I think the approach is fundamentally flawed because it attempts to address each country as a whole,” says Kathleen Peddicord, who blogs about overseas retirement for U.S. News and World Report from Panama City and is a former publisher and co-owner of the International Living business. “You can’t talk about the climate in Ecuador or the cost of living in Panama any more than you can talk about the weather or the cost of living in the United States as a whole.”

Peddicord also thinks International Living should give more weight to a country’s accessibility for North Americans.